Abstract: To investigate the effect of initial effective consolidation stress , void ratio e, and fines content FC on the small-strain shear modulus of saturated sandy soils, a series of isotropically consolidated bender element tests is performed on three saturated sandy soils with various physical properties. The test results show that the stress exponent n, reflecting the rate of increment due to the enhancement of , presents a soil-specific constant, and there is a good exponential correlation between n and the synthesizing grain size distribution parameter of sandy soils. Fitting parameter A of Hardin model decreases as FC increases, and an exponential correlation is found. But there is no obvious single correlation between fitted parameter d and FC. Combined with the test data of of three saturated sandy soils in the literature, it is found that the stress-corrected small-strain shear modulus /( /Pa)n for different types of sandy soils decreases monotonically with the increase of the equivalent skeleton void ratio , and a good power relationship between /( /Pa)n and is then obtained. Generalized Hardin model that allows unified characterization of values for different types of sandy soils with various , e and FC is established based on binary medium model.

Key words: saturated sandy soils, small-strain shear modulus, stress exponent, equivalent skeleton void ratio, generalized Hardin model